Would Ruskell be an upgrade?

The ESPN workaholic told the "Afternoon Saloon" on WMVP (AM-1000) that the Bears have agreed to terms with former Seahawks general manager Tim Ruskell.

The Bears, who denied a Tuesday report from Schefter that Ruskell continue to deny that any deal has been reached. A team spokesperson said he's confident the two sides have not yet agreed to terms and didn't expect any further news Wednesday.

This still looks like it's going to happen. If so, here are the questions that most need to be asked if the seemingly inevitable becomes reality: Is Ruskell an upgrade over former pro personnel director Bobby DePaul, who was fired earlier this month? Have the Bears improved their front office by, in essence, swapping De Paul for Ruskell?

The answer remains to be seen, of course, but this seems like a John St. Clair-for-Kevin-Shaffer type move from afar.

DePaul had great success while adding players that helped the Bears reach the Super Bowl in 2006 but fell on lean times since. Ruskell had great success early in his career in Seattle until a series of bad decisions contributed to the team's meltdown in recent seasons.

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5 Comments

Watch out folks Ruskell destroyed the Seattle seahawks. The numerous bad choice with personell has returned the Seahawks back to the 1990. This guy is just bad a picking players. I wouldn't pay him to come an ruin my team. Plus he ran out the winningest coach in team history for a one and done train wreck named Jim Mora Jr. It makes this Hawks fan just sick to think of all the bad choices he made. You would be better off with Matt Millen.

"A team spokesperson said he's confident the two sides have not yet agreed to terms and didn't expect any further news Wednesday."

If the PR person who said this is so confident, why didn't he just say no he has not been hired? "Confident" is a PR term, it leaves them a lot of wiggle room, because they are not positive, they are not denying anything, they are just confident.

So he has been hired and probably will annonce it on a friday night or something. Or wait for some big story to break and slip this in.

DePaul didn't fall on hard times, he just wasn't given a lot of money to spend. You can't sign guys when you don;t have the cash. Most of the Bears money has gone into keeping players from the 05-06 teams. Like Harris, Hester, Urlacher, who all got fat contract extensions.

He was a major part of the Cutler trade as well. I still want to know what job Ruskell is getting all reports say its higher up than Depaul was with more power and taking over many of Angelo's duties, like scouting.

Bobby DePaul was the best of a very weak front office. Firing him was really lame and was undoubtedly due to some power struggle or failure to get along, probably with Lovie Smith or Martz or both. Ruskell is completely incompetent. His first year in Seattle was good, then he was a complete disaster. This is a major step backwawrds. Just kill me now if the Bears hire him. In fact, considering what they've done over the past several years, kill me anyway.

Propheteer, you're focusing on the wrong thing. The Bears' big money went to players they already had. Cutler is the only one they were willing to spend big bucks getting. DePaul was severely constrained in what he could get.

One big happy family.
We got the ex zero and 16 coach from the Lions that came here as a savior for the D-line that saved nothing and got promoted for that. Now we get the destructor....to go along with cover-none defense orchestrated by none other than lovie. We have an ex Defensive coordinator that should have been fired but got promoted/demoted (or whatever) to linebacker coach. We got an Offensive coordinator that was the only person on this planet that would take the job.
We have an accountant that knows nothing about football running the whole show. We have a general manager that can't draft players. We have a bunch of bozo owners that created this 3-ring circus (or is it 5 ring or 6 ring by now).